October 1, 2026
"We are homegrown, we love White Bear Lake," Connor Podewils said this spring, standing in the storefront on County Road E where his family had just opened Bear Dogs. He wasn't describing a brand concept. He was describing his own resume: high school here, sports here, a stepfather who ran the tire shop down the street for three decades.
That sentence could describe almost every storefront that's changed hands downtown this year. Walk 3rd Street, 4th Street, or Washington Square in 2026 and you'll notice the names moving around, but if you trace each one back, you keep landing on somebody who was already here.
Bear Dogs opened this spring at 1595 County Road E East, co-managed by brothers Connor Podewils and Logan Neal, both graduates of White Bear Lake Area High School. The walls are painted black and orange, there's a bear on the wall, and the pitch is simple: a place to sit down, have a beer, and watch a local game, which Connor said doesn't really exist elsewhere in town right now.
The family history behind it is the more interesting part. Connor's father, Ryan Podewils, opened Pods Tires and Wheels in 1995 with his own father and ran it for close to thirty years before selling the business last year. Logan's father, Todd Neal, opened Nacho Mamas in Stillwater back in 2005. Neither brother wandered in from outside the industry or outside the town. One sold a legacy business to help fund the next one. The other grew up watching his dad do the same thing in the town next door. Bear Dogs has already started catering tailgates for White Bear Lake boys and girls lacrosse, which is less a marketing decision than a continuation of the same social circle the brothers grew up in.
Donatelli's has been at 2692 County Road E East since 1976, when it started, by its own account, as a hole in the wall pizza joint. Fifty years later, the menu has grown to include burgers, pasta, and sandwiches, and this August the restaurant announced it would open a second location in Bloomington, calling it a milestone the team credited directly to its regulars.
This is worth sitting with for a second. Fifty-year-old restaurants in small downtowns don't usually expand. They hold steady, get sold, or close when the owner retires. Donatelli's did none of those things. It grew outward from a base that never needed rescuing, which says something about how much slack a genuinely local following can give a business that a newer restaurant wouldn't have.
Lake Country Booksellers turns 46 this year. It was founded in 1980 by five women, empty nesters from North Oaks who took a bookselling course and built the shelves themselves, a group the store still refers to as its founding mothers. Susie Fruncillo bought into the ownership partnership in 1998 and spent nearly 28 years behind the counter before deciding, at 80, that it was time to step back.
What happened next is the part that makes this a different kind of story than a typical small-business retirement. The store stayed in the family. Kia Johnson White, granddaughter of founder Alta Johnson, is now a co-owner alongside Kia's mother Nancy Thysell and aunt Faith Basten. Fruncillo told the local paper she felt perfectly wonderful leaving the store in Kia's hands, which is not the language of someone selling to a stranger. This is a business where the succession plan was decided around a family that had already been running it, informally, for three generations.
That matters for a store whose whole appeal depends on people, not inventory. Lake Country Booksellers carries roughly 5,000 titles and competes with every e-reader and big-box alternative on the theory that a staff member who actually knows your taste in books is worth walking downtown for. That only works if the people behind the counter aren't new hires learning a job. Kia grew up in the store. She was there as a baby and worked there through high school before her family moved out west, then came back.
Not every expansion downtown has room to spread out. Humble Roots Boutique, which has run a location in Centerville at 7095 Centerville Road, expanded into downtown White Bear Lake this spring by sharing a storefront at 4762 Banning Avenue with a new furniture maker, Oak & Iron. Owners Tiffany Downing and Bisson began moving in at the end of March and aimed for a soft opening timed to the downtown Spring Fling event on April 18.
Oak & Iron, which held its own grand opening April 30, handcrafts furniture and home goods, describing its work as built for real homes and cabins around White Bear Lake rather than for trend cycles. Two businesses splitting one address isn't a workaround. It's closer to what the current downtown footprint requires. There's no vacant block waiting for a new tenant to spread out into. Growth here tends to mean fitting into whatever space actually opens up, sometimes with a neighbor on the other side of the same wall.
Here's what that looks like laid out plainly:
None of these four stories involve an outside investor buying into White Bear Lake or a chain filling a gap. Every one traces back to a family that was already rooted in the community before the new sign went up. A tire shop funds a hot dog stand. A pizza joint that's been on County Road E since the Ford administration expands because its regulars kept showing up. A bookstore hands its keys to a granddaughter instead of a buyer. A boutique from the next town over splits a storefront rather than wait for one to open on its own.
Downtown White Bear Lake isn't short on turnover. What it's short on is turnover that brings in someone the town doesn't already know. The name on the door changes. The people who show up to open it in the morning usually don't.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this means for your own next move, whether you're already living a few blocks from Washington Square or thinking about what it would take to be, Ewing Real Estate Group is happy to talk through it. Request a complimentary market valuation whenever you're ready.
Get assistance in determining current property value, crafting a competitive offer, writing and negotiating a contract, and much more. Contact them today.